At its meeting Tuesday night, the district’s board approved installing magnetic locking systems similar to those already in place on two campuses. Superintendent Merle Dickerson said the board would be asked later to approve a re-design of the school’s entrances.

“In too many of the schools, visitors have immediate access to the hallways, ... and we are doing a lot of things differently now,” Dickerson said, according to the Times Record newspaper of Fort Smith.

With the new doors, visitors will have be “buzzed in” by someone in the school’s front office. The board authorized spending $8,971 on the security package.

“This is a first step in control of security for a building, right?” asked Board President Jamie Hammond, who is also a captain and assistant commander with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division. Dickerson agreed.

Dickerson said that, short of the entrance re-design, this was the final step in securing the premises for children and their parents when they come to school to pick up a child.

“When you pick up your kids in a lot of buildings, you will do it inside rather than waiting outside the building because of the possibility someone could be outside with a gun,” Dickerson said.

Many area schools have revamped security policies in the wake of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting at Newtown, Conn., that resulted in the deaths of 20 students and six teachers.